Education and Inspections Bill

moved Amendment No. 162B: Page 29, line 44, leave out first ““of”” and insert ““and their”” The noble Baroness said: I shall also speak to Amendment No. 165. These amendments probe the idea of the choice adviser, whose role is established by the brief Clause 40. Amendment No. 162B should perhaps have been included in the group of amendments that dealt with the voice of the child. It is a neat amendment that makes clear that choosing a secondary school should be for parents and children, not just parents. The Minister made available to us some of the draft guidance on choice advisers, which has got it right. Paragraph 7 states: "““Choice Advice is about helping and supporting families including mothers, fathers, adults with caring responsibility and children to make the best and most realistic choice of secondary school””." After that, it goes downhill. It is full of detail about what choice advisers should know and do and how they should target disadvantaged families, but it constantly refers to parents and carers, not children. However, it is slightly redeemed by paragraph 17, which states: "““Wherever possible the child should be included and provided with appropriate advice so that they are able to express an informed view about a choice of school””." This is an important point. When a child is 10 or 11, it is old enough to take a view about the school that it wants to go to, and it should be involved in the process of choice. The guidance is right, but I would like to see more emphasis on including children in the discussions. That should be in the Bill. Changing ““parents of children”” to ““parents and their children”” achieves what we want and sets the right tone. I hope the Minister is sympathetic to this amendment. Amendment No. 165 was drafted before the draft guidance was available and reflects the Local Government Association’s view that guidance about what the Government wish local authorities to do is needed because the Bill makes clear that this system is to be run through the local authority. Local authorities now have extensive guidance, including a full-blown scheme for accrediting choice advisers. In general, these Benches applaud the vision and the degree to which the Government are anxious that each local authority works out its own scheme. The guidance provides a variety of models that might be followed. We have one query about the process. The Government are making available £6 million a year—£12 million in total—to get the scheme moving. That works out at £300 per primary school. Paragraph 16 of the guidance puts the situation very clearly when it states that it, "““is clear that Choice Advice should be targeted at about 30 per cent of families””." A typical primary school will therefore work with about 10 families. The examples, which talk about groups of perhaps 10 or 12 primary schools together, make clear that it is a full-time job for a choice adviser. I applaud the Government on setting up the procedures for choice advisers, but are they really providing enough resources to fund their proposals? One of the problems is that neither schools nor local authorities have spare resources with which to fund the extra posts. I beg to move.